


since i've been away

by volando_voy



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Family, Gen, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2016-07-18
Packaged: 2018-07-24 18:02:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7517941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/volando_voy/pseuds/volando_voy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kara has a bad day, Alex doesn't know what to do, and everyone cries.</p>
            </blockquote>





	since i've been away

Alex can do a lot of things, but writing lefty and trying to hold a sheet of paper flat with her other arm in a cast? Not so much. And, okay, maybe she should’ve finished her homework last night, but trying to do everything backwards all day had wiped her out. Plus, she’d lost an hour to Kara asking where seashells come from and whether or not they really roar like the ocean. Honestly, she deserves homework credit for that. Kara’s questions are exhausting.

Unfortunately, Señora Garcia is interested in her knowledge of _el imperfecto_ , not mollusk exoskeletons, so she’s kind of screwed.

“Hey, Yu,” Alex says, grinning and nudging the girl sitting next to her with her pen, “I’ll let you copy my Spanish answers if you write them down for me first.”

“Seriously?” Hannah rolls her eyes and bats Alex’s hand away. “You’ve been torturing me with that pun since seventh grade and you expect me to help you?”

“Wait, Danvers is offering to let somebody cheat? Is the world ending?” her friend Daniel teases from across the table.

Alex shrugs. “My handwriting is a total mess right now. It’s worth it,” she replies, passing her homework sheets over to Hannah, but she bites her lip and shoots a quick glance to her right just to make sure Kara isn’t listening.

Fortunately, Kara’s attention is fixed on the other side of the room and she’s working her way through a second bottle of chocolate milk with a doofy little smile on her face. Alex shakes her head and turns back to her friends, only to freeze when she sees Daniel and his girlfriend, Melody, also watching Kara and giggling to each other.

Alex frowns, unsure of how to call them out, but then Melody smiles at her and nods her head in the direction Kara’s staring.

She looks over nervously, then stifles a giggle of her own when her eyes land on an adorable baby-faced kid with floppy brown hair who’s sitting two tables over and reading a comic book. Kara’s checking out a _boy_? That’s so normal she almost wants to hug her. 

It doesn’t last. The kid looks up in their direction, and Kara gasps so loudly that everyone stares at her. Alex tries to catch Kara’s arm to distract her, but her stupid sling gets in the way and she can’t reach. When she finally turns so she can meet Kara’s eyes, they’re wide and panicky in a way they haven’t been since the hospital waiting room, and Alex has no idea what to do.

Kara’s cheeks flush bright pink as she stammers out, “I, um. I’m gonna go,” and pushes herself back from the table so hard she nearly tips it over. Her chair actually _does_ crash to the floor behind her when she bolts out of her seat, and she whips her backpack over her shoulder so fast it nearly hits Alex in the face as she makes a beeline for the door.

“Ugh, wait, you’re not allowed to leave before the bell rings,” Alex protests. She tries to grab Kara’s backpack as she zooms past, but damn it, using her bad arm _hurts_ , and part of her is sick of this crap and Kara can _have_ her stupid embarrassed mood swing or whatever. Except her eyes haven’t stopped tracking Kara across the room to where she’s pointing at the door and arguing with Mr. Greer, the actual most unreasonable teacher on the planet, and if she doesn’t interfere then Kara’s going to get yelled at or thrown in detention or—

Or be allowed to walk right out of the cafeteria unescorted. What the _hell?_

“Yo, Alex, is this homework deal still on or what?”

She blinks. Right. Homework. Because this is school, and there’s still fifteen minutes left to lunch, and she’s awkwardly standing up at the table like she can’t decide if she wants to chase after her stupid foster sister for the millionth time this week or not.

“Earth to Danvers? This tarea ain’t gonna complitir itself.”

Alex spares one last glance at the cafeteria door before she sits back down and rolls her eyes at Hannah. “Oh my god, it’s _completar_ , dumbass. Please tell me you didn’t write any answers for me while I wasn’t looking.”

Hannah flips her off and throws a Cheeto at her, but then grins and picks up her pen as Alex patiently narrates the answers to their grammar questions and tries to ignore the empty space beside her, and the nagging impulse to check the door every thirty seconds, for the rest of lunch.

Kara doesn’t come back.

**************

Two periods later Alex’s arm is throbbing so badly it’s giving her a headache, and she’s beyond ready for more pain meds. She’d convinced her mom to let her take them at school — Kara kept looking like she wanted to cry every time Alex went near them at home, and no amount of insisting she was fine had made Kara’s kicked-puppy expression go away, so. It’s just _easier_ , to take her prescriptions in the nurse’s office where nobody stares at her while she tries to swallow her pills.

Alex sighs and chucks her bag onto one of the waiting room chairs as she enters the room. “Hey, Mrs. B,” she calls out, “I’m back for more drugs.”

“Just a second, Alex,” the nurse replies, emerging from one of the little back rooms where they keep the cots for sick kids. Mrs. B pulls the door halfway closed and bustles over to her desk to get Alex her meds, and as she walks away Alex spies a familiar mess of blonde hair hanging off the edge of the bed inside the darkened room.

“ _Kara?_ ”

She’s across the floor and at the doorway in three steps, only to have Mrs. B catch her by the unbroken wrist and tug her away. “Nice try, Alex, but you’re here to take your medicine and get back to class, not to socialize.”

“But that’s—” The words _my sister_ die in transit somewhere between her brain and her mouth. They don’t feel right in either place, even if they’re the simplest way to explain.

“That’s your pills and your water,” Mrs. B cuts in, stepping forward to block Alex’s view and holding out one cup for each. “How’s the arm today?”

“It’s better,” she lies, knocking back the pills as fast as she can and crushing the paper cups in her good fist. She wonders how long Kara’s been hiding out in here. She wonders _why_ Kara’s been hiding out in here, and if it’s her fault somehow.

She wants to push her way into the room and ask, but Mrs. B pries the smashed cups out of her hand and nods toward her bag. “The late bell’s in two minutes, and I’m not writing you a pass.”

Alex leaves.

**************

Kara’s waiting for her by her locker when school lets out. Except she’s not really waiting— she’s got a notebook clutched in her hands and she’s reading the open page over and over so fast it makes Alex’s eyes ache just watching her.

“Thought you couldn’t get sick,” Alex says as she spins the dial on her lock.

Kara doesn’t answer. She just keeps reading, again and again and again, only now she’s also murmuring the words under her breath.

They don’t sound like English.

Alex throws her books into her locker in frustration and slams the door shut as hard as she can. Sure enough, Kara startles out of her weird little trance, snapping her eyes shut and jerking her hands up in an awkward attempt to cover her ears. Her notebook drops to the floor.

Kara may be superpowered, but she’s also kinda useless when she’s disoriented, so Alex gets to the notebook faster. “What in the world did you even…?” She frowns, trying to decipher the blocky symbols covering the page. The only word she recognizes is Kara’s name, but it’s surrounded by a little doodle of a _heart_ and there’s another word scribbled beneath it. Further down the page amid a wall of text there’s a sketch that looks impressively like the cute boy from lunch, and _okay,_ this is the most human thing Kara’s done in weeks. She can totally handle helping with a crush.

She smiles, at least until Kara comes to her senses and yelps, “ _Don’t!_ ” before grabbing for her notebook. She yanks it away so hard that papercuts sting Alex’s palms, and then the entire thing crumples in her grip: the metal spine bent awkwardly, the cover mangled, the top page of writing torn and smudged.

“Kara?” Alex asks hesitantly, because Kara’s just staring at the mess in her hands with a blank expression and she hasn’t made a sound, and it’s starting to freak her out a little. “Hey, come on,” she says gently, holding out her good hand, “We can buy you a new one on the way home, it’s okay.”

Kara’s head snaps up at the word _home_ , her eyes dangerously bright behind her glasses, and a moment later the remains of her notebook go flying into Alex’s locker hard enough to dent it.

They both freeze as the reverberations of the metal echo down the hallway. Kara looks at her helplessly, shoulders shaking and tears running down her cheeks, opening and closing her mouth like she’s trying to figure out what to say. Or maybe how to say it.

She steps closer and extends her good arm, willing to give Kara a hug if she wants one, but Kara ignores her and runs down the hall, straight out of the building.

Away from her. Again.

She turns and kicks her locker with a frustrated scream, and okay, _ow_ , that was stupid. But now Kara’s upset and alone, and Alex can’t even chase after her and make sure she’s safe thanks to her dumb broken arm. She turns around and thumps her back against the lockers, ignoring the resulting tingle of pain that shoots down her arm. Her shoulders slump and she slides down until she’s sitting on the floor, gazing at her beat-up sneakers like they can tell her how to fix this mess.

After a few minutes of fiddling around with her shoelaces and counting the floor tiles, her eyes land on the remains of Kara’s notebook, which is still laying in a ball a few feet away from her. She considers just leaving it for the janitor to sweep up, because the spine is beyond fixing and the pages will never lay flat again, but … well, she has no idea what Kara was using it for, besides that one page of doodling. Maybe she has notes in there she needs for school.

She scrambles to her feet and heads over to grab the notebook, tucking it into her sling while she fumbles her locker open again to put it away for tomorrow.

The page Kara was reading earlier taunts her as she adds the notebook to the pile of her own stuff. The penciled writing is all smudged and the sketch is torn right through the middle of Cute Boy’s face. Kara’s going to feel awful if she sees it like this. Biting her lip, she wedges the notebook against the door of her locker with her injured arm, using her left hand to carefully tear along the perforations and pull the page free. Nodding to herself, she tosses the book into her locker and kicks the door shut.

She’s going to find Kara, but she needs to make a detour first.

**************

She almost goes straight home, but her intuition tells her to check the park three blocks from her house first. Sure enough, Kara’s there, tucked away near the big fountain by the playground. She’d said a few weeks ago that she likes to sit there, because the water gives her something to concentrate on when everything else is too much.

Given that Alex can tell she’s _still_ crying, even from the entrance gate, “too much” might be an understatement for today.

She tries to be quiet as she walks toward the tree Kara’s sitting under, but even without looking Kara’s whole posture shifts while she’s still fifteen feet away, like she knows she’s coming. (And maybe she does, because this happens a lot. She keeps forgetting to ask.) 

“Hey,” she says softly, once she’s only a couple steps away, “Can I sit with you?”

Kara’s eyes stay closed and she doesn’t speak, but she nods and scoots over a tiny bit so Alex has room to sit under the tree, too, if she wants.

Alex drops her backpack in the dirt and awkwardly tries to settle down next to Kara without damaging the sheet of paper she’s been carrying in her good hand for the last half hour. “Today kinda sucked, huh?” she murmurs.

Kara nods again. This time she even opens her eyes.

“Did you stay with the nurse for the whole afternoon?”

Kara glances at her hesitantly. “Yeah.”

“I’m sorry,” Alex says. Her throat feels tight all of the sudden. “I thought maybe you were just hiding in the bathroom. During lunch, I mean.” She slides a little bit closer, her fingers worrying over the edge of the paper in her hand. Kara’s face still looks pale underneath all the tear stains. “What happened? Did you actually get sick?”

“Kind of,” Kara replies, sniffling and running her thumbs under her eyes to wipe up the rest of her tears. “My stomach felt all knotted up and I, um. I threw up, but I didn’t?” Her brow furrows a little as she searches for words. “And I was shaky and it felt like the air was wrong when I breathed. The nurse said I had… an emotion thing. I don’t remember.”

“A panic attack?” Alex guesses, frowning. “That’s… Kara, did you really get this upset because you got caught staring at a boy? Nobody was going to laugh at you, I promise. We all thought it was cute.”

Kara gapes at her for a moment, and then twists away so Alex is left staring at her back.

 _God_ , she’s never going to get this sister thing right. She tilts her head back against the tree trunk and stares up at the leaves, blinking frantically to clear the sudden mist of tears in her eyes before Kara realizes she’s upset.

She’s concentrating so hard she nearly jumps when a rough scrape of fabric brushes her shoulder, but then Kara carefully settles against her and tucks her knees up under her chin. She’s quiet for a while, except for long, shuddery breaths that aren’t _quite_ sobs. After what feels like an eternity, she uncurls herself and sits back so they’re staring up at the leaves together, shoulder to shoulder, and finally whispers, “He looks like Del.”

“Huh?”

“This boy I knew. From home. His name’s Del-Or. We… well, there wasn’t school, not like here, but he’s my age and sometimes at public gatherings we’d spend time together, and…”

“And you liked him?” Alex prompts, glancing over at Kara as she trails off into silence.

“ _Everyone_ liked him,” Kara replies, flashing her a tiny smile. “He was funny, and so kind. At the last festival he gave me all of his sweets just because they were my favorite color.” Kara’s smile fades and she stares down at her lap. “He danced with me, too, the entire night. My mother—” Her voice wavers, but Kara swallows hard and continues. “My mother promised she would ask his parents to let him have dinner with us the next week. Sometimes, I, um.” She turns her head away and stares down at her hands, hunching her shoulders. “Sometimes when I can’t sleep I imagine what it would’ve been like. If we could’ve… you know.”

Alex nods, dimly aware that she has more tears in her eyes, and that she probably shouldn’t because it’s not like this is _her_ life, but all she can think about is Kara, who’s sitting there twisting her fingers hard enough that any normal person’s would break and letting her hair fall across her face like a shield. Like somehow it can block out the fact that everyone she remembers is dead, or that she used to have places where she fit in and friends who didn’t think she was weird. And now Kara’s just got _her_ , and all she can do is stare uselessly and curl her good hand into a fist so hard that it crushes the— _oh_.

“Hey, uh. I almost forgot.” She shifts her arm and tries to smooth the paper against her leg before holding it out to Kara, who brushes her hair out of her face and looks up with wide eyes.

“You _fixed it._ ”

“I tried,” she clarifies nervously. “It’s still really wrinkled, but I taped it back together so it’s mostly okay. I figured, you know. That you’d want it back. You spent a lot of time on it.” She has no idea how to read the expression on Kara’s face right now, but she feels a weight lift off her shoulders when Kara reverently accepts the page out of her hand.

“Thank you, Alex.”

Kara traces her fingers over the drawings and reads the text again, slowly, with a cadence that reminds Alex of a prayer. When she’s done she fidgets with her glasses for a second, and then there’s a burst of light before Alex can stop her, and the entire sheet of paper dissolves into ashes that Kara gently blows into the sky.

“Why did you do that?I thought that was important to you and then you just—”

Kara’s hand settles on her forearm, holding her still. “I was saying goodbye.”

 _Oh_.

“Can we stay here a little longer?” Kara asks, dropping her hand back into her own lap. “It’s nice.”

“Yeah,” she says. She hesitates for a second, but then lifts her arm and tucks it behind Kara’s shoulders. Kara leans closer and rests her head against Alex’s with a contented smile, and Alex sighs in relief. Maybe she can actually do this. “Of course.”

**Author's Note:**

> So, Del-Or is mentioned in 1x13 (Black Mercy ep) at the moment when Alex finds Kara within her memory/fantasy of Krypton. Kara's parents are teasing her about him and how much they seem to like each other. I don't know why that stuck out to me as particularly heartbreaking, but there you have it.


End file.
